A convicted murderer who went missing from a Hampshire mental health hospital had been allowed out, it has been revealed.

Police launched a massive hunt for double killer Daniel Rosenthal
after he was granted leave and failed to return at the agreed time.

The 58-year-old, who is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was jailed for murdering his parents in 1981.

He is a patient at the low-secure Southfield Hospital at Tatchbury Mount, Totton.
But just five years ago he was in the Ashworth Special Psychiatric
Hospital on Merseyside, where fellow patients included Moors Murderer
Ian Brady.

After Rosenthal absconded from Southfield police warned the public not to approach him, saying he was potentially dangerous.

He was finally located in Southampton at 11am on Sunday.

Rosenthal was initially said to have gone missing after going for a
routine, unsupervised walk around the hospital gardens but the Southern
Health NHS Foundation Trust has today revealed that he was on leave when
he disappeared.

A Trust spokesman said: “Hospital leave is only granted following a
thorough risk assessment which is carried out and regularly reviewed by
psychiatric professionals.

“The granting of safe, carefully-managed periods of leave for patients
in secure hospitals takes place in similar services nationally and is a
vital part of rehabilitation back into society for people who may have
spent decades in hospital.

“The offence that this patient committed took place 32 years ago and
significant progress and recovery has taken place since then.

“If the patient posed a risk to themself or to the public then leave would not have been granted.”

Rosenthal was jailed for life after murdering his mother Leah at his home in Hedge End, having earlier killed his father Milton in France.

During his four-day trial at Winchester Crown Court jurors heard that he disposed of both bodies by cutting them up into tiny pieces.